Cricket should stop worrying about its status and enjoy any newcomers attracted by its charmsLast summer, that heady season where hot day followed hot day until heat became an expectation then a belief, there was a World Cup in Russia. In front of largely disbelieving eyes back home Gareth Southgate’s men tossed away the burden of low hope and through a purring repertoire of set pieces got all the way to the semi-finals, where they were finally outrun by Croatia in extra time.A year on we hit another World Cup, the men’s Cricket World Cup – with the Women’s Football and Netball World Cups nipping at its heels. England this time pull on the unfamiliar shiny shoes of favourites, which...
Hamid Hassan generates plenty of pace but David Warner is in no hurry for dominant AustraliansOf course they booed David Warner when he came out to bat, and he will have to get used to that. And in the quiet moments one could catch occasional catcalls on the wind too, cries of “Oi! Warner...”Up on the balcony of one of the flats at the Ashley Down Road End there were a couple who had come dressed, you guess, as sheets of sandpaper. Only from a distance one might have confused their homemade outfits for a couple of chips, or perhaps a pair of Weetabix. Had Warner eaten his that morning? He did not bat like it. This was his first...
The win over South Africa could not have gone much better for England – and that catch galvanised an unexpected amount of interest in the Cricket World CupIt was not only the England team who were grateful to Ben Stokes in the victory over South Africa. So was everyone in the offices of the England and Wales Cricket Board, which is eager to promote this “once in a generation opportunity”.The board can – and has – contrived lots of well-meaning gimmickry in an effort to galvanise interest in the 2019 World Cup. But all of its efforts were utterly outstripped by the eight-second clip shown on Thursday’s Ten O’Clock News of Stokes taking that catch to dismiss Andile Phehlukwayo on...
From Australia and South Africa choking at home to India’s 2007 shock and England’s woes, half a dozen CWC nightmaresThe year 2007 changed cricket, a transformation that pivoted on India’s performance in its two international tournaments – their early exit from the 50-over shindig and their triumph in the inaugural Twenty20 one. In a Caribbean World Cup that opened with four groups of four from which only two teams progressed, the competition’s defining day was not its concluding one – when Australia emphatically beat Sri Lanka to secure a third successive crown – but its fifth, on which Pakistan and India crashed to cataclysmic defeats, against Ireland and Bangladesh respectively. Pakistan’s tournament was then engulfed by tragedy with the death...
The all-rounder came in when England were wobbling but his calm assurance set up a big total and then he took a wonder catch and the last two South Africa wicketsAccording to the ICC the average age of people who have bought tickets for this World Cup is 40, but one would never have known it on Thursday morning. It felt as ife there were 25,000 children spilling out of the tube stations and pouring up Harleyford Road towards the Oval.Everyone who cares feels a bit like a little kid again on days such as this, especially now England have a team worth getting childishly excited about. So the stands rang with that very particular sound, unique to a cricket...